meh

Well, I've got a solid 55 Mbps BT connection (now that BT have finally stopped angling for rural BB subsidies for a large town location). I just lack a 4K TV or any interest in men kicking their balls around.

Re: I find what people hate about Ubuntu weird

"With Unity, you never have to touch the mouse. I mean, using the keyboard is actually faster than using the mouse for almost every task."

Well, there's the problem. Unity is a command line interface masquerading as a GUI. It was originally presented as a new GUI needed for a new wave of Ubuntu tablets and smartphones so we come to it expecting a GUI. If I'm going to have to type in the name of the program I want I might as well just type it at a command prompt.

Unsound Sound

"Given that we had only three TV channels and the analogue audio was perfectly consistent between them"

Those were the days. In these days of digital wotsits sound levels are all over the place within a single channel. In the case of BBC's Click (supposedly its technology flagship programme in the absence of Tomorrow's World) levels are all over the place within a single programme. (In a bad week, even within a single item.)

Reply to all

"The Register does not know if the residents have begun emailing each other using the "reply-to-all" function"

Is the Pope Catholic?

Every time we had a reply-to-all storm at a former employer you could look forward to a half-day of r-t-a requests to not reply to all, mixed in with requests to "delete me from this list" even, or perhaps especially, for emails that didn't originate from a list server, all enlivened with sarky comments on the internal newsgroups.

Re: Who can tell?

"When I check firefox add-ons I have something called Shockwave flash (v19.0 r0). So I don't actually know if this is shockwave or flash or something else?"

Confusing, isn't it?

The Adobe Shockwave Flash product which is at v19.x.x is what's normally just called Flash. While it's buggy there's still a lot of it about, so getting rid of Flash might restrict your ability to see videos.

In Firefox you can set Flash to 'Ask to Activate' so you can turn it on for wanted videos (and see how often you need it) whilst leaving it off for adverts. (Tools->Add-Ons->Plug-ins->Shockwave Flash, choose Ask to Activate in the Activate drop-down.) The ipad/iphone don't support Flash, which drives the growth of alternatives.

Shockwave itself is at v12.x.x. As Psymon noted, it isn't popular now. I deleted the Shockwave plugin the last time it needed updating and I haven't missed it.

Re: The Abyssmal

"The Abyssmal"

I was surprised that The Abyss escaped the roll-call of SF films in the articles - underwater base, alien, even the shot from above of the base all lit up, like the fleet.

Mind you, at least The Abyss was set at sea. This base appears to be submerged in a reservoir. Why do you need an underwater base and a trillion dollars of drilling kit to drill under a reservoir? Rather a bit too much SF running down corridors as well.

Oooh, I haven't seen a walled-up server story for yonks and now we have a whole comments section full of them. Of course, back in the day, all these hidden servers used to run Netware rather than Unix.

- performing an OS upgrade (with the risk of everything going pear-shaped if the automation fails),

- sorting out any drivers or bundled software that stop working under Win 10,

- having to use Win 8 whilst waiting for the upgrade.

Once you know Win 10 is on its way, it's easier to carry on with your existing kit a bit longer, let the vendors sort out the integration issues and buy something that does what you want when you buy it.

Re: sigh!

"And this is what passes for 'entertainment' on Channel 4 these days?"

Regrettably so. In the Flex household this sort of stuff is referred to as a caring, sharing, freak show. Add a thin layer of social commentary and you can apparently serve up any amount of bad behaviour from the less fortunate in society. And to think we look down on Hogarth's contemporaries for going along to laugh at the inmates at Bedlam.

Or perhaps you have an intimate medical problem you're too embarrassed to see your GP about? Why not expose your suppurating nads to the whole nation on one of C4's medical shows? The freakier the better.

the dreaded dingy CFL

Well, now we have dingy LED lamps. The brightest available from my local DIY emporium is only rated at 50 W equivalent, which is rather less than the 100 or 150 W incandescent lamps I used to use in my living room.

That's before you start arseing around getting the lamp to work with your phone, which will pretty much rule these products out for normal people.

Re: btrower The gloves are off

If you're going to quote Article 8 of the ECHR, quote the whole thing, not just the bits you agree with. Here's the part you omitted:

"2. There shall be no interference by a public authority with the exercise of this right except such as is in accordance with the law and is necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security, public safety or the economic well-being of the country, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others."

Looks like the IPT decided GCHQ was working within the limits of that paragraph. Whilst your US and Canadian examples aren't relevant to the UK I see they don't offer unlimited privacy either, and nor does the UN UDHR article 12.